Figure 2.

Heatmap and MA plot of selected differentially expressed genes associated with NK cell function. (A) Heatmap of selected NK cell genes comparing CD56^negCD16^pos and CD56^dimCD16^pos NK cells. The id between the brackets are the protein name for that particulate gene, i.e., gene symbol (protein name), NCAM1 (CD56). (B) MA plot of differential expression analysis between CD56^negCD16^pos and CD56^dimCD16^pos NK cell subsets. The MA plot illustrates a log2 fold change of NK specific gene expression in CD56^negCD16^pos relative to CD56^dimCD16^pos cells and the average normalized expression counts of genes expressed by CD56^negCD16^pos cells. Protein names are used in the MA plot for ease of comparison to flow data even though these results are for gene expression. The Red dots indicate genes that have significantly higher expression in CD56^negCD16^pos relative to CD56^dimCD16^pos NK cells (with BH-adjusted p-value < 0.01 and FDR < 0.05), whereas blue dots indicate genes that have significantly lower expression (with BH-adjusted p-value < 0.01 and FDR < 0.05), and gray dots are genes that are similarly expressed. (C) Boxplot of gene expression profiles that define Innate Lymphoid Cells (ILCs): AHR, AREG, BCL11B, CSF2, GATA3, GFI1, IRGAE, RORC comparing CD56^negCD16^pos relative to CD56^dimCD16^pos NK cells.